


from the outside looking in

by grindle



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Accidental Voyeurism, Bisexual Lance (Voltron), Flirty Lance, Funny, Gay Keith (Voltron), Lance (Voltron) is a Mess, M/M, Miscommunication, PINING KEITH, Pranks, Somnophilia, Voyeurism, lotor is a freak, oblivious lance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-26
Updated: 2018-03-25
Packaged: 2019-04-08 06:06:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14098908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grindle/pseuds/grindle
Summary: When Lotor gained access to the Castle's video feeds, he never meant to be so entranced.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: this isn't all freaky. It's also about Lance and Keith's occasionally funny fuckups in growing their relationship. 
> 
> Also, I need someone to bounce ideas off of and stuff, so hmu in the comments if you're vaguely competent.

Lance ran his hands through his hair as he thought. The water from the showers ran down his face, his eyes closed as he pondered why that cute Xenian had left so suddenly, in the middle of their dance.   
"Keith?"  
Keith jumped in surprise from the other side of the room. How had Lance known that he was staring?  
"Y-yeah?" he called back, hesitant.  
Lance opened his eyes, un-self consciously shampooing his hair with a pungent purple concoction as he spoke, completely naked. Keith couldn't help to marvel at his lack of shame- the red paladin could barely even shower with Lance, and Lance was the most self-absorbed person in the universe.   
"Remember how last night I was at that nightclub? The Phallus? And I was grinding on that hot blue hunk?"  
Keith's cheeks reddened. He did remember. Lance continued.  
"Well while you were in the bathroom, we were getting really down with it- super fuerte- get what I'm saying? So, like, he grabs my ass," Lance grabbed his own ass for emphasis "and I dunno if he had a dick, but I felt something, and then suddenly he just runs off to the bathroom!" Keith also remembers that. He could hear the "hot blue hunk" furiously washing his hands from the stall where Keith was trying to "calm down" from Lance's show.   
"So like, what was that?" Lance continued. "I mean, he was really into it, if you know what I mean, and then he just left! Oh god, Keith, what if I'm too muscle-y now? Keith, do you think I'm not a twink anymore?" Keith remained mute- his face the shade of a tomato- as he tried not to stare at Lance's nude body. This was a special kind of hell. He felt faint, and the steaming showers weren't helping.   
"Keith- answer me. Am I too muscular to be a twink? Shit. What if I end up like Shiro? Not that he's not hot, 'cause like, he's smoking, but I'm not into that! I'm a bear chaser, not a bear! Keith am I twinky enou-"  
"I have to go!"  
\------------  
It had started as an accident. Lotor was sure of that. It had started so innocently and then suddenly Lotor couldn't stop. But it hadn't seemed like a bad idea at the beginning, and why would it? There was no drawback to getting access to the Castle's video feeds. With that, even without audio, he'd be able to learn Voltron's plans before the paladins even got into their lions. But the real problem was that Lotor's interest laid in seeing the paladins. He'd never seen them, let alone any earth creature. What were they like? Hideous, probably, and idiots. Bugs to be squashed underfoot.   
Lotor leaned forward in his throne as the video feed loaded. He could hear Zethrid fidgeting behind him, and Narti's cat Kova swishing about his generals' legs. It was silent. Dead silent. The loading bar crept nearer and nearer to completion. Lotor drummed his fingers on the armrest.  
"Finally!" he exclaimed, as the front wall split into many, smaller views. Many, many, small views. Lotor's head spun as he tried to absorb the information. There had to be hundreds of different perspectives, every angle of every room. He squinted. "Narrow it down to every camera with movement." he ordered. Acxa complied, and the one hundred plus screens shrunk to one. And in that room? They were not the disgusting animals that Lotor had expected.   
\---  
Back in his room, Lotor finally had the freedom to marvel at these creatures- humans, as Haggar told him. He stared at the screen of his device, where the video feed was playing. It was in the playroom, or what had been the playroom when Lotor and Allura were children. Now it was stripped of its pillows and toys, and scraped clean of any trace of Lotor. In the harshly metallic room sprawled five figures, on the verge of collapse. He was instantly fascinated. One was in green, a diminutive little wretch with limbs that looked set to snap off. What a runt! Zarkon would have drowned Lotor immediately if he were that puny. Excitedly, Lotor leaned in closer to his computer screen as he turned his attention to the one in yellow. It was powerfully built- a formidable adversary- and yet it held itself with no poise or threat. Odd. But he audibly gasped when he recognised the one in black. It was the Champion!   
"Of course," announced Lotor to the empty room. "Why would Zarkon ever mention that to me, his son? That the champion of the intergalactic gladiator rings, endowed with cutting edge-Galra tech, and from the same planet where the blue lion of Voltron was found, had escaped?" He stood up abruptly, pacing for no longer than two ticks before succumbing to his curiosity and slamming his body back into his seat. His anger was easily overshadowed by his real motive-- Allura. He could see her shape in the far corner, her face obscured by shadows. Her legs were kicked up on the couch and her head was tipped back, all manners forgotten at the slightest stress. Lotor couldn't suppress the smile that spread across his face. Allura was acting just like when they were children. The princess' signature poise was neither natural nor easy. Lotor knew this well- the only times when Lotor and Allura weren't together were when Allura was in time-out, so the two never were able to get sick of each other. She looked beautiful, the prince realised. He felt himself drawing nearer to the grainy computer image as he desperately sought out more of her face, but a sudden flurry of movement in the corner of the screen made him start.   
That was when Lotor realized that he was done for, because at that very moment, in came the most intriguing creatures he'd ever seen, soaking wet, right from the showers.   
\--

At this point, he felt a small part of him screaming to stop. And Lotor tried to stop - he really did. But sometimes there are things that you can't control. Some part of him hoped that he could restrain himself, that he really could resist that inexplicable tug, but he still sat right down at his computer just like he thought he would. He cursed himself as he loaded the video feed, and damned himself as he clicked on the common room. It was empty. He clicked out to all of the views and selected a feed full of movement. It was, he realized, a sort of kitchen. The strong yellow one was mixing up various coloured goos in a big bowl, smiling as he listened to the wet one in blue. The blue one was leaning on the island as he recounted some humourous tale, gesticulating wildly. Lotor watched for a moment before he noticed, in the doorway of the kitchen, barely visible in the camera, the red one. Lotor switched feeds for a different view and zoomed in. Red was silently observing the two's interaction. A fellow watcher.  
Lotor stood up. "Transfer feed. Activate projection -- bed," he ordered his room. As settled into his dark canopy bed, illuminated by the light of the projection, and knew that he was fucked.


	2. Chapter 2

When Lotor awoke, the bedroom projected in front of him was already empty.   
"Fuck," he groaned, and rolled over to his side. He found himself staring at a bowl full of oie ashes. "Fuck." he repeated, with more feeling. That explained the headache. With a colossal force of effort he dragged himself out of his nest, throwing off pillows and illicit drugs.   
"Room," he ordered, "run a bath."  
And as he went to undress, he walked through the hologram, still showing Lance McClain's empty bed.  
\--------------  
"Keith, we're worried about you."  
Keith started, turning around to see Shiro in the doorway of the observation room. The red paladin opened his mouth to reply, but his throat felt like it was full of cotton, and his tongue was a dead weight. He couldn't find anything to say. Shiro took his silence as an invitation to talk, and and Keith marveled at his purple skin while he sat next next to him on the bench. They silently stared through the one-way glass overlooking the training room.   
Below them, Lance and Hunk were sparring. Hunk was, of course, a hunk, but Keith couldn't help but stare at the blue paladin. His skin was coated in a thin sheen of sweat, glistening as he leapt over boxes and shot expertly at the holograms. He and Hunk were beaming, their giggles muffled by the thick glass. Sweat trickled down Keith's forehead. Shiro cleared his throat.  
"Are you okay?"  
Keith looked down to his hands clenched in his lap, and then to Shiro's hand, the human one, resting between them. A lump formed in his throat, and he tried to swallow, but his mouth felt like it was full of sand. It was so hot.  
"Keith?"  
Keith looked up at Shiro's face, so open, so concerned, and for some reason, also melting.   
"Shiro-" he gasped, "Shiro- I'm so fucking in love with Lance"   
That was when Keith threw up.  
\----------  
"Really, it's incredible that he survived!"  
"Why?" countered Lance, his hand on his hip.   
Allura's smile faltered. "Well, I don't exactly know... The poison had about twelve zincates of narin, but he was nearly immune..."  
"Hold up, narin?" came Pidge's voice. She had materialized beside them in the hallway, a small dog shaped robot trailing her. "Narin is in... It's uh," she trailed off, in thought. Lance shifted his weight to his other hip. They waited as she chewed her lip and furrowed her brows.  
"Oh! I got it!" she exclaimed. "It's in turnips!"  
“Hah!” Lance scoffed. He laughed and laughed, leaning on the wall to support himself as his chest heaved. Nobody else was laughing. When he was finally finished wiping the tears from his eyes, he realized that all eyes were on him, including Shiro, who'd just exited into the hallway. He looked grave. They stood in silence as Lance searched their faces for some hint of a smile, or a 'just kidding!' None came.   
"You're kidding, right?" Lance asked. "Y-you're kidding. He'd have to eat like, a million turnips in order to become immune."   
The faces staring at him were deadly serious.   
"Lance," said Shiro, laying his human hand on Lance's shoulder. Lance was starting to get scared. He didn't know why. "Lance, Keith loves turnips."  
It was silent. Lance laughed nervously. "W-what?"  
Shiro repeated himself, a little more forcefully. "Keith loves turnips."  
Lance was now officially uncomfortable. This couldn't be real. It was too weird. He looked at his teammates' faces, all staring at him disapprovingly.   
"Lance,” said Pidge. “how did you not know this? He brings up turnips 120% more than a normal human. It's just logical that him constantly mentioning turnips means that he thinks about turnips more." said Pidge. She lowered her voice in an uncanny imitation of the red paladin. "'These rocks look like turnips.' 'This tastes like a turnip.' 'Wow Hunk, these are almost like turnips.' How have you not noticed?"  
"Yeah," came a chorus of voices. Lance took a step back, arms raised defensively.   
"Quiznak, chill. I dunno!"  
This time Coran spoke. "Well 'e's with you more than anyone else. You need to pay attention to him.”  
“Whoah, guys, him? Lone wolf Keith? Even if I spoke to him he wouldn’t answer! Unless it’s about quiznaking turnips, I guess!” Dramatically, the blue paladin turned on his heel and stormed away in the general direction of his room. His footsteps reverberated from the hallway.   
There was a long pause as the remaining paladins listened and made sure that he was truly gone. Then they erupted into laughter.   
“I can’t believe that he believed us!”  
—————-   
next day  
—————-  
Keith knew that somebody was outside of the door. He could smell it. His sense of smell was drastically inferior to that of the full galra, of course, but he could get some broad information, and from the soft smell (like a baby) coming from behind the door, he knew that it was human. It was probably Shiro, he decided, probably trying to extend however little alone-time he had. When you’re as busy as Shiro, loitering in an empty hallway with his head against the wall could be heaven. That was chill. Keith looked back down to his computer and resumed researching.   
“Hey, Keith?” came a call through the door.   
The red paladin started. It wasn’t Shiro. It was Lance. His heart started beating faster and his voice croaked when he managed his weak “Yeah?”  
Lance, of course, took that as an invitation to enter, and do so he did, looking somewhat sheepish. He had a crudely wrapped parcel in his hands, which he shuffled about like a stress ball. His eyes were looking at everything but Keith and Keith was glad because his face was-  
“Look Keith, everyone’s been bagging on me for not paying attention to you because I didn’t know that you love turnips or whatev-“  
“What?”  
“How you only survived because you eat lots of turnips, duh, and-“  
“What the hell are you talking about?” demanded Keith. He looked around, just in case Hunk was hidden behind the curtains, barely suppressing his giggles. Sadly, it was just them, and Keith didn’t understand.   
“What are you talking about?” countered Lance, jabbing an accusing finger at Keith’s bare chest. He was basically yelling. “You were poisoned!”   
“What the hell are you talking about, man?!” shouted Keith, scrambling to his feet. He was wearing only a pair of gross boxers and socks. “I just ate like, a really bad burrito thing!”   
“That’s a lie!” With that, Lance spun on his heel and fled the room, but not before flashing Keith his middle fingers.   
“I’ve never had a turnip in my fucking life!” Keith screamed.  
“You can’t fool me, mullet!”  
He was gone.   
Behind him he left the parcel. Keith picked it up with trepidation- was it a bomb?- and unwrapped it. To his complete surprise, it was a drawing. The shittiest drawing Keith had ever seen, of a deformed turnip with a bandaid. He stared at it in disbelief, a smile slowing spreading across his face. Lance was the worst artist Keith had ever seen.


End file.
